Darkship Thieves

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  First thing the Good Man did when he came to was scream his head off. Nat ignored him, sitting across from him and smoking patiently. Simon and I let him scream. The more noise he made, the less strength he would have to oppose us.

  I don't know how long he screamed. I was trying to think of the things to ask, and how to ask.

  I needn't have bothered. I simply didn't get a look in. You see, Nat had apparently been thinking of small bones in the body that you can break easily and curiously painful things one can do with a lighted cigarette.

  After half an hour, Simon left. I could hear him retch in the fresher next door. At forty-five minutes, the Good Man sang. Interestingly, he sang without even the promise that pain would stop. I guess Nat didn't like to lie.

  As soon as I had the details about where Kit was held, I left the room, almost running. Simon, very pale, was waiting in the hallway. We'd chased everyone else from this part of the lair before we started, but we went all the way to the other extreme, near the entrance, where we could almost not hear a staccato of screams, followed by some rather curious sounds, the provenance of which I didn't want to know.

  "He really . . . Nat . . ."

  "Yes," I said. "He felt his skull. After you left. There are . . . scars."

  "Uh . . . your . . . did he tell you the location of your husband?"

  "Yes."

  "So . . . are we going to rescue him?"

  "Yes. The problem is how. You see, the facility is under water. Carved in dimatough."

  Forty-Five

  Well, at least it explained why I was able to contact Kit, at least intermittently. You see, the facility, code-named Never-Never, because whoever went in there was never seen or heard of again, was built into the very foundations of Syracuse Seacity, either nested in a bubble left over from the pouring of the city, or melted after the fact.

  It was under water though not that deeply in—I guessed because it was easier to air that way.

  "We could go in through the top," I said. We'd assembled in a new war room that Simon had arranged to be partitioned at the front. Nat had vanished with the Good Man and none of us was all that eager to find out where he had gone. Or what had happened to the Good Man or whatever remained of him. I remembered all too well what Nat had said about keeping him alive for days, and damned if I was going to begrudge him his vengeance, but I also didn't need to think about it. This was clearly also Simon's idea, since he didn't even want to go to the room at the back.

  We were all sitting on the floor, in a circle. All of us being about fifteen broomers, only two of them new, plus myself and Simon. Fuse had left his beloved explosives to come sit by my side, but I wasn't absolutely sure if he counted.

  "We could," Simon said. "But if we do, we'll meet resistence full on, won't we?"

  "Right," I said. The thing was, and Simon had pointed this out, that we had to move really fast. Oh, Nat was a fast bastard and, apparently, had cleaned up behind him, removing the sleeping dart that had lodged in the girl's neck. But we needed to get Kit out of there, and then both of us out to Circum Terra and out to Eden before someone realized that Good Man Keeva was missing, and who had done it. Any delay could mean they moved Kit. Or they destroyed the Cathouse.

  Oh, I'm sure there were other ships we could use, but none adapted for use by a cat from Eden. And I didn't want to try to pilot the thing without Kit's special abilities. Plus, Eden might damn well blast us out of the sky as we approached. They damn well might. Collectively, they were as paranoid as I was.

  "So . . . what if we go from the side?" I asked. From what Good Man Keeva had told me about the positioning of the facilities, they extended all the way to the edge, on the south side of the city, right by those cliffs that led up to Daddy Dearest's mansion. Under the water.

  "Mmm. Could be done. Except we risk drowning whoever is in the lower levels, if it extends very far down."

  I'd thought of how many levels there might be and I'd asked, though not for this purpose. "There are three levels," I said, "but the underwater one is the lowest one, and depending on the type of puncture we make . . ." I was thinking. "There must be some way to make a hole and cover it, so that it doesn't immediately flood the place."

  At that moment I became aware of Fuse, pulling on my sleeve. "Yes, Fuse?"

  "Do you remember? I told you. The sewer repair. I stole one."

  Clear as mud. "You stole a sewer?" And of course I didn't remember. I had been thinking of Daddy Dearest and of whatever was going on with that. I hadn't been thinking of sewers. Or repairs.

  Fuse hissed out air like a peevish child. "No, Thena. A lot of seacity sewers are access . . . access . . ." He lost the fight with his drooping mouth, but not without spraying a broad perimeter of spittle all around. "Are near the outside of the foundations, and it's easier to enter from the side. I watched them do it. To repair the sewer. You blow a shaped charge, and then you slap in a . . . a chamber, with two membranes." He looked at me, and must have seen complete, blank incomprehension. "Like an airlock. I stole it because I thought it was neat!"

  We hadn't taken his word for it. Taking the word of one madman at a time was sort of my limit. I'd already filled that quota with Nat. So Simon and I had inspected the airlock chamber which Fuse had stolen. I guess you could call it that. It was about six feet long, and wide enough to let a person pass, and it reminded me of nothing so much as a buttonhole. Inside there was a chamber, small enough to let one of us through at a time. We'd have to coordinate it.

  "I'll have to call reinforcements," Simon said. "And I've . . . uh . . ."

  We were standing outside Fuse's compartment, discussing plans, but he stopped and sighed.

  "You've uh?"

  "I've made enquiries about your ship."

  "Oh, no," I said.

  "Not officially," Simon said, quickly. "Never officially. I . . . have friends amid the harvesters. Well, they're my friends if I pay enough, you know how that goes."

  I knew how that went.

  "I went up for a visit couple of years ago," he said. "You see, I always wanted to go to space. So I went up, and looked around, and . . . well, they're willing to help for a little cash."

  Wasn't that the way of all the worlds? And wasn't it a wonderful thing?

  "Anyway, your ship was radiation cleaned, because they were . . . you know, studying it. Not taking it apart yet, but studying how it works. So I paid someone to stock it. Air, water, food. I can't promise what the food will be, but it should be enough for your trip back."

  I nodded. I didn't know what to say. I hadn't even thought of that, just thought that I wanted out of here and back to Eden. Good thing someone's brain was working.

  "I'll have an air-to-space ready for you to take to Circum. Do you think you can? You or . . . your husband? It's a fast one. Very small. You should be able to make it up there and dock in less than three hours, if you can pilot it accurately enough."

  "Kit for sure," I said. "If his eyes and mind are working." I hadn't heard from him for a while, and my attempts at mind-touching met with complete shielding on his part. I could get no more than the sense that he was alive and . . . well, not well. "And if not . . . we'll figure it out." He could always borrow my eyes and hands. Provided it wasn't a lethal wound, Eden had regeneration. And somehow, I doubted they would destroy his eyes. Not if they wanted him to do the same work Jarl had done. Or to try to understand it.

  Suddenly, without warning, Simon had pulled me to him and was kissing me hard, teeth scraping teeth. I was so shocked it took me a moment to put a hand on his chest and push him back.

  He smiled a little, not at all embarrassed. "I figured I was entitled to a goodbye kiss," he said. "If it weren't for that husband of yours . . ." He grinned. "Ah, well. Let's get the show on the road, shall we?"

  III

  JE REVIENS

  Forty-Six

  That was how, before dawn had fully lit the sky, we were out, flying just above the water near the cliffs just beneath Daddy
Dearest's mansion.

  Fuse flew ahead of us and down into the water, and I hoped—hoped—that the airlock would work. I didn't want to drown Kit. Simon was very nice, but hardly a consolation prize. The problem was that I was very much afraid without Kit I'd go as crazy as Nat had gone without Max.

  Fuse dove down and moments later the water splashed up. I didn't see Fuse splash up with it, but he also didn't fly back up.

  I couldn't wait, so I flew down, and there was the grey membrane, on the wall of the cliff. I rode through on the membrane, with a burner in each hand.

  The airlock was dry and on the other side was a hallway with only a little water on the floor, and if Fuse had come in through here, who knew where he had gone, and what had happened to him, because there was a detachment of goons facing me.

  I burned in a scything motion, aiming for their necks, because their bodies might be armored and heads exploding is only interesting as a figure of speech. They all went down.

  Kit, I'm here. Where are you? What level?

  For a moment, there was no answer and I thought they'd moved him, I thought—

  This level, he said, having got the image of where I was from my mind. From his memory he sent me the image of which corridor to take, how to get to his cell, how to get him out.

  Be careful, love, I'm guarded.

  Oh, I wouldn't expect anything else.

  But not your father. He left, in a hurry, some time ago.

  I see, I said. It was, in fact, clear as mud.

  Forty-Seven

  I flew down the hallway, followed by Jan and Simon. The other broomers were presumably either guarding access to this corridor or perhaps just causing random mayhem in other parts of the compound. While guarding the corridor would be the sane thing to do, these were broomers. If they were inclined to sanity, they'd get therapy, not shoot at things, hold up things and get people to pay them for protection. No.

  I just had to hope we could make the best of what we had.

  At some point Jan and Simon got ahead of me. By the time I got to the door at the end of the hallway, they'd already killed the two sentinels there.

  They were about to burn the genlock with their burners on high, but I decided to play a hunch. "Clones, remember?"

  Jan looked startled, but lay his hand across it. And the door spread open. I don't think he had believed any of what had spread around the lair like wildfire—the whole thing except the fact that the Good Men were Mules. I saw belief and comprehension hit him like a mallet. I though he would be out for the count.

  We must have been faster with the breakin than I expected, because as we entered the room, Kit was chained to a desk. Literally chained to a desk, looking in baffled wonder at a holographic screen. I registered two things that made me feel immense relief—he seemed to be whole, and the light was turned down to the point where it was only slightly uncomfortable for him. Probably the lowest they could take it. I'd brought sun-protection goggles for him, of course, but it didn't look like—so far—his eyes were ruined.

  The other things I noticed weren't so reassuring. There were two guards in there, one who swivelled to point his burner at me, and whom Simon burned where he stood.

  The other guard, though, was Good Man Rainer, Jan's quasi Father. He was punching at a com button and screaming, "Repeat, what should I do with the prisoner?"

  A burner ray came over my shoulder. Jan had burned him where he stood. And then, as if nothing at all had happened, he helped me melt Kit's chains so that I could take him out of there.

  Nat was going to be so disappointed. One less that he got to take care of.

  Forty-Eight

  Everything went well. Almost too well. I'm not used to things going without glitches, and when they do, I start looking around for the trap. I've found that I'm always right.

  I wasn't looking for trouble, and I can't say I was disappointed I got Kit out of Never-Never with relative ease. But my anxiety grew every time something went well or smoothly.

  I tensed as we left through the membrane, tensed some more as I managed to fly back, through the water, to the outside.

  Kit had panicked under the water, and for just a moment I wished I'd remembered to bring Morpheus, only I doubted I had Nat's ability for holding a tied-up man on a broom, and in fact it wasn't something I was sure I wanted to acquire.

  As we flew above the water, sparkling silver in the morning sun, Kit was so quiet that I was afraid he was seriously hurt—though I hadn't seen what looked like more than scrapes and bruises—or perhaps that the glasses weren't enough to shield his eyes. But then he mind-said, If we could take a tenth of the water we can see to Eden, we'd be so rich. And I was reassured. My ever-practical love remained himself.

  Simon had taken us to where he'd hidden the air-to-space and seen us aboard, and managed to say goodbye without kissing me, which was good because the minute Kit saw him, I swear he started ruffling feathers he didn't have and looking like were it not for a few generations of civilization, he would be pounding his chest to scare away the intruder.

  The air-to-space was comfortable, and I hoped Simon got it back. We docked it where we'd been told, and got back into the Cathouse which was lovely and freshly scrubbed. And I'd been happy, yes, but I also felt that odd prickling at the back of my neck. Trouble was on the way, I was sure of it. And yet, was I only reacting to the stress of the last few days?

  Kit had flown the Cathouse out of Circum without anyone even trying to follow us.

  Sitting in the cat cabin, even if he had managed to lose a lot of weight and have a huge bruise on the side of his face, Kit looked like himself, and very, very happy, as his fingers played on the keyboard.

  "Go get the fresher," he said.

  "Are you implying I smell?" I asked.

  "No. But if you go now, you can be all clean to direct me through the powertrees. I figure since we're coming back late, we might as well take some powerpods."

  "You're just afraid they'll send us back if we don't."

  "Kath might," he said somberly. "She'll be pretty pissy by now."

  Undeniable. Though I suspected she would forgive us all the moment little brother came back alive and well.

  I hit the fresher. The funny thing is even our clothes were where we'd left them. I guessed they'd just radiation scrubbed the whole ship and hadn't got around to doing anything with the contents. Suited me fine. I got a nice blue dress that Kit liked, and hoped it would compensate for the loss of hair. I tried not to look at myself in the mirror on the way to the fresher. Couldn't be helped. My head had just the littlest bit of stubble coming in. The best I could do for Kit right now would be to tie a scarf on my head.

  I didn't, though, as I came out of the fresher. Just hoped Kit could get used to me like this until the hair grew back.

  In the hallway just outside the cat cabin, I said, "I hope you can get used to—"

  And stopped as I entered the cat cabin. Because Daddy Dearest was there. Pointing a burner at Kit's head. And Kit was moving like a robot and looking like a wax dummy.

  My father turned but not so completely he'd lose sight of Kit and faced me with a wide smile. "About damn time, Athena."

  "I see you wanted to see us off, Daddy Dearest," I said.

  He glared at me. "Depends what you mean by off. I knew it was you when I heard Keeva had disappeared. I gave my orders. Your little friends won't get to kill my century-old friends. Not this time, daughter. Not ever. By now all your friends are dead. But I knew you'd be coming here. And your friend St. Cyr . . ." He made a gesture. "Clumsy child, nothing more. Not a tenth the man his father was."

  He accented the familial relationship words with ironical inflection as though daring me to say something. I wasn't about to. I also wasn't about to give my friends a thought. Oh, I hoped Father wasn't speaking the truth, and if I knew the bastard, there was a good chance he wasn't. He was just trying to confuse me. But at any rate, it didn't matter. It was between us now, not the broomers.
<
br />   He grinned at me, as if he knew what was going on in my head. "Well played, girly. Not even a growl back? You've grown up. Too bad that will all go to waste. I can't afford to lose you now. There aren't enough of us of the old school to restart the genetic program from scratch. So you'll come with me to Earth, where you'll be a good girl and we'll finish what we'd started in the space cruiser. And then we'll bring our kind back, in glorious splendor."

  I glared at him. "Our kind?"

  He lost his temper at that. Controlling himself had never been his strong suit. "The Mules. You know damn well. Don't think you can toy with me."

  "Ew. You're genetically my brother," I said, pretending I didn't know what his ultimate plans for me were.

  He glared, but he kept an eye on Kit and he never moved the aim from Kit's neck. "We are superior to the rest of humans. We owe it to the Earth to populate it with the best possible humans. Cheer up. Your children will inherit the Earth."

  "No, thank you. I've had enough. Enough of Earth and enough of you."

  "Ah . . . no species loyalty. Not that I expected better of you, girl. You've been a disappointment from the beginning. You were the result of centuries of research and I had high hopes. We tried to reproduce the miracle that created you, but we couldn't. The antireproduction triggers in our genes destroyed every other female embryo we created, even those cloned from you." He grinned at what must have been my ghastly look of surprise. "Oh, it was easy to get material during your medical exams, your medical crises. But none of them took, so you're all we got. And I must take over your body and make it do what it must do for the betterment of mankind."

  "You're not part of mankind. And what part of replacing it is betterment?"

  "Oh, we won't replace all of them. We'll need servants, after all." Casually, gently, he rested his free right hand on the back of Kit's neck. Kit gave the impression of flinching from the touch without moving, not even minimally. "Move it, Athena. Ahead of me. I have an air-to-space ready to go. You come with me now, and I'll let your play friend go back home without hurting him."